Understanding Code-switching from a Sociolinguistic Perspective: A Meta-analysis

A meta-analysis or synthesis of prior research critically presents research findings in a discipline of knowledge to review and summarize these findings from a bird's eye view in order to put these findings appropriately within the state of the art. This meta-analysis seeks to tackle the issue of code-switching from a sociolinguistic and language pedagogical perspective. The study is a theoretical paper that highlights the concept of code-switching as a socio-linguistic and educational phenomenon as well as to present the social facts and factors that were investigated and highlighted in linguistic research. The methodology adopted in this paper is research synthesis which aims to combine the results of multiple primary research studies on code-switching to highlight the concept of code-switching from a sociolinguistic and language educational perspective. Research synthesis in this paper was conducted to cover qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods research studies and cases studies that employed cases studies and historical/anecdotal studies with the purpose of juxtaposing these findings from different studies to make these findings more applicable and generalisable in the field of foreign language education. Towards this end, the paper presents the different definitions of this phenomenon and the history of its development in linguistic theory as well as in language research. It also proceeds to highlight the sociolinguistic and pedagogical approaches to researching code-switching in items of its functions, teachers' attitudes and pedagogical applications. Eventually, the paper summarizes the role of code-switching in English language teaching philosophy and pedagogy.